Craig Teevan in action for the Crushers
With senior forwards Tony Hearn and John Jones reduced to the role of radio commentators, South Queensland Crushers’ hooker Craig Teevan took it on himself to provide the inspiration in the rucks as the club carved out a stylish 24-22 win over Wests Magpies at Suncorp Stadium.
Teevan, devastated at missing out on a Queensland Origin spot after a fine State debut in 1995, grabbed six ‘best player’ awards after a magnificent display of dummy half running and passing.
Coach Bob Lindner said the loss of Hearn (suspension) and Jones (injury) took away a lot of leadership qualities from the side and he was proud of the way Teevan stepped up.
Hearn and Jones provided expert commentary for rival radio stations calling the match, the result of which saw Wests drop from the top eight for the first time in the season.
Wests coach Tom Raudonikis said he had no excuses and the Crushers were the better side.
“But there were some ordinary performances out there. Unbelievable!” he said.
The match featured the first grade debut – off the bench – of Mark ‘Tooks’ Tookey, who had just been chosen for the Australian Universities side for the Students World Cup to be held in England in August.
Tookey, a forward with an ample frame, shaped as a personality player for the Crushers who were trying to get fans through the gate after club marketing people had a wretched off-season with uncertainty over where there would be one or two competitions in 1996 as News Ltd mounted its ‘Super League’ assault on the code.
The Crushers’ boasted an average attendance of over 21,000 in their debut season (1995), around 6,000 better than the Broncos in their debut season of 1988. But the attendance for the game against Wests was a meagre 8,961 on a beautiful day.
“He (Tookey) is a crowd favourite and no-one’s ever seen him before, “Lindner said. “Imagine what it will be like next time we bring him on. He’s been doing that sort of work in any grade we put him in.”
That work featured fearless charges into the defence, with would-be tacklers often sent careering backwards.
The result gave the Crushers consecutive wins for the first time in their short existence. Penrith had been on the receiving end the previous week.
Teevan, a school teacher, had been the hero of the kids at Riverview Primary in 1995 when he played for Queensland. When he was a kid Teevan would write his favourite Queensland players’ name on the back of his jersey with chalk and pretend to be them in backyard matches.
Looking back on his role in Queensland’s 3-0 series win over the Blues, Teevan had this to say in an interview with Crushers’ media in 1996: “It was the perfect week (the first week in camp), nothing we had to do was a chore under (coach) ‘Fatty’ (Paul Vautin), and winning the game was the icing on the cake.”
Footnote: Mark Tookey went on to play 125 top grade games in Australia and 66 in Britain. He is now employed by the Warriors in Logan City and has trimmed down considerably after taking up marathon running.
I covered the Crushers/Wests match for The Courier-Mail and caught up with former Great Britain forward George Nicholls before kick-off. George had a supporters’ group of 50 fellow Englishmen with him one of his many rugby league trips to Australia. They were off to Bali the next day.
Earlier in the day I had watched our youngest son, Lliam – who was then 11 – play for Norths’ St Josephs against Valleys at Virginia. He had scored a try in a 12-10 win.
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